Yesterday's steep stock market plunge of 416 points sent a warning of how vulnerable the market structure is to systems glitches and data backlogs when there are unexpected volume surges and rapid sell-offs in an electronic trading environment.
As most of us know, problems began around 2 p.m. when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was already down 200 points -- in part a reaction to the sell-off in Chinese stocks, translated into concerns about the U.S. economy. I was in the car at 2:30 p.m. wh

Northern Trust is winning a great deal of pension business from multinational clients on the basis of its tax-transparent cross-border pooling. To enable international companies to pool the assets of their pension funds from many countries without running afoul of the IRS, the firm developed a tax-transparent cross-border pooling solution in September 2005. In fifteen months, assets in the product have grown from 0 to $10 billion and Northern Trust is seeking a patent on its methods of handling

Does the apparent death of the Nasdaq-LSE deal spell doom for the transatlantic duo? Are Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange shark bait, or is this one more step in a chess match being staged on a global scale?

Nasdaq's pursuit of the LSE has received tremendous market and press coverage of late. However, the potential tie-up seemed to turn a strategic corner recently. The revelation, detailed below, that Nasdaq met with the Project Turquoise consortium a few weeks ago to potentially license the INET technology from its ECN platform takes Nasdaq's hostile pursuit of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to another level. Whereas in the past the Nasdaq/LSE disagreement seemed to be over a fair price for th

What's the cost of disorganized data on Wall Street? A portion of our cover package this month on The Cost of Doing Nothing was inspired by former Tower Group analyst and current SVP of enterprise data management software company Golden Source, Tim Lind, who knows a thing or two about the state of data in major firms. He shared some insightful and irreverent thoughts wit

U.K. recruitment firm Joslin Rowe released a notice this week of what it is calling a "recruitment timebomb" for MiFID consultants. With just nine months to go before EU financial institutions are expected to be compliant with the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, demand is soaring for experts who can help firms reach compliance.

THE CHALLENGE: Wall Street has relied on the dependability of mainframes for more than 40 years. But as the competitive environment demands more efficiency and agility -- and as alternatives mature -- firms are weighing the pros and cons of migrating off their mainframes.

Although you won't find it on any balance sheet, the lack of formal data management policies and processes can be costly. Securities' firms that fail to devote time and resources to data management practices and tools will find themselves paying a price of increased risk, failed trades and overly expensive data feeds.

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about a study that seemed to prove that site-to-user authentication was a broken practice. Well, not surprisingly, the purveyors of such technologies took exception to the notion that their product was ineffective. What follows is a response written by Louie Gasparini, co-CTO of the consumer divisi

You would think that by now almost every user of the Internet would know not to click on links in emails supposedly from financial institutions -- especially a bank that you have never heard of or have never done any business -- and enter your username or password.
But as this podcast and article from National Public Radio (NPR) points out, Web-savvy individual

Last week, IM TRADER, the instant messaging network for brokers and fund managers, began allowing institutions to sweep electronic pools for hidden and visible liquidity by integrating its network with UNX's algorithmic technology.
"We've helped integrate their algorithmic system out over the IMTRADER network to help investment professionals have the ability to communicate orders to a sophisticated platform using an AOL Instant Messenger window," explains Ed McDonnell, Pivot Solutions' SVP of S

The Content Technology Solutions division of Dow Jones (New York) has launched a Wealth Manager Web site that aggregates news feeds and presents wealth managers with reasons for making contact with clients, the company says.

Buy-side traders that feel comfortable using instant messaging to communicate with and route order flow to the sell-side community can now use IM to sweep crossing networks and dark pools.
The cool technology comes as the result of a partnership between Pivot Solutions, the developer of IMTRADER and UNX, an agency brokerage specializing in direct-market access and algorithmic technology.

With buy-side traders turning to faster execution management systems (EMSs) and installing them on the desktop next to their order management systems, the OMS vendors have been scrambling to provide EMS functionality.
This week, LatentZero a supplier of front-office systems for the buy-side, said it had integrated EMS functionality into its buy-side OMS. The company's OMS, Capstone Minerva, now has a fully integrated EMS trading module desig

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) announced that it has begun consultation with member firms on the services it will offer to keep members in compliance with MiFID.
The exchange has built its services on the TradeElect platform, which will utilize preexisting connectivity and infrastructure to offer a familiar market model under MiFID. LSE will extend its marke

Wasting no time reaching out to Microsoft Vista early adopters, Fidelity has released a Market Monitor gadget that Vista-using investors can use to keep an eye on their stocks. Gadgets are always-on mini-applications such as games, live webcams and traffic maps that can be downloaded free at www.gallery.live.com and sit in the miniature portal "Sidebar" section at the right of the Vista desktop screen. (Fidelity also offers its gadget at www.fidelity.com/beta.) The Fidelity gadget provides watc

As part of its ongoing effort to cut costs, Credit Suisse signed a deal today to outsource its entire voice and data network management infrastructure to BT and Swisscom. Under the $1.1 billion contract, 231 employees and 50 contractors will be transferred to BT. The contract has a minimum five-year term with the option of extending the term to seven years and encompasses Credit Suisse's enterprise and financial trading environments.

Despite the global reinvention of securities exchanges as for-profit companies, IT spending by exchanges will continue to lag behind that of brokers and asset managers, according to research from TowerGroup

Question: Will SIFMA's request to have the SEC examine the NYSE's new market-data fees have any impact on the future fee structure(s)? What are the concerns about the proposed new market-data fee structure?

The World Economic Forum seemed to be focused solely on global warming and climate change, if you relied on the news reports from columnists attending the event, including this magazine's own coverage.

At most Wall Street firms, the preparing of quarterly and annual reports is a tense, stressful time of Excel files being emailed back and forth and behind-closed-door meetings at which financial numbers are presented, reviewed and approved. Two products aim to help walk you through this process, automatically routing data to the right people and acquiring their approvals (using electronic signatures), providing the controls that Sarbanes-Oxley and accounting practices require, and producing stat

Ivy Schmerken, Advanced Trading
Crossing networks are staking out their turf in trading Pan European equities as a prelude to competing with traditional exchanges under the Markets In Financial Instruments Directive or MiFID.
This week, Investment Technology Group (ITG) said it plans to launch POSIT Now, a continuous intraday crossing system for equities - into Europe. POSIT was the first regulated ATS in Europe but as of November, it will become a

Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
With the proliferation of alternative electronic execution venues lining up to compete with the New York Stock Exchange and The Nasdaq Stock Market, connectivity to these new liquidity pools is not a topic that gets discussed much. But this week two of the new electronic marketplaces - one an ECN, the other a stock exchange - revealed new partnerships with electronic trading platforms.